Travel: Glass walkways becoming a tourist attraction in China

Of late, transparent walkways are gaining attraction in China and are becoming a major tourist attraction. More and more tourist places in the country are building glass bridges on steep and vertical regions to attract more visitors.

Watch this video showing terrified Chinese tourists cross a transparent bridge in central China’s Hunan province. Touted to be the world’s highest and longest glass bridge, it is set to open in July. The 430-meter bridge is suspended 300m over a canyon in Zhangjiajie National Park and cost 250 million yuan to construct.

A glass pane shattered on a different walkway in China last year, terrifying tourists. To allay such fears, the bridge makers invited a journalist to smash it up with a sledgehammer last week. BBC’s Dan Simmons carried out the safety test, smashing a section of glass several times. And although the top layer cracked, the pane remained stable.

The new bridge that stretches between two mountains has been engineered to withstand even more powerful blows as it is composed of three layers of ultra-strong glass.